Drums¶

This document details the format for drums in .chart files.

Drums Track Types¶

There are three types of drum tracks:

Standard 4-lane
Four lanes, drums and cymbals as the same note type
4-lane Pro
Four lanes, drums and cymbals as separate notes but still sharing lanes
Four drums, three cymbals
5-lane
Five lanes, drums and cymbals as distinct lanes
Three drums, two cymbals

These all unfortunately share the same track, and there are no specifications to allow explicitly distinguishing between different types of drum tracks by track name, so the track type must be determined through heuristics.

Determining Track Type¶

The type of a Drums track can be determined using a process such as the following:

Check for the pro_drums and five_lane_drums tags in the song.ini.
If one is present, and set to true, force the drums track to be parsed as that type.
If neither are present, fall back to the note type detection.
Both being set to true is an invalid state, and either should not be accepted, or one is preferred over the other.
Check the chart for notes that indicate the type:
If cymbal markers are present, it's a 4-lane Pro track.
If the 5-lane green note is present, or if notes are sustained, it's a 5-lane track.
If neither 5-lane nor Pro are detected, fall back to standard 4-lane.
If both are detected, it may be preferable to prioritize Pro over 5-lane.

Track Type Conversions¶

Here are some suggested conversions between different drum types:

5-lane to 4-lane Pro:

5-lane	4-lane Pro
Red	Red
Yellow	Yellow cymbal
Blue	Blue tom
Orange	Green cymbal
Green	Green tom
O + G	G cym + B tom

4-lane Pro to 5-lane:

4-lane Pro	5-lane
Red	Red
Yellow cymbal	Yellow
Yellow tom	Blue
Blue cymbal	Orange
Blue tom	Blue
Green cymbal	Orange
Green tom	Green
Y tom + B tom	R + B
B cym + G cym	Y + O

Song Section¶

Metadata¶

Key	Description	Data type
`DrumStream`	Drums audio for the kick drum, plus snare, tom, and cymbal audio if 2-4 are not present.	file path
`Drum2Stream`	Drums audio for the snare drum, plus tom and cymbal audio if 3 and 4 are not present.	file path
`Drum3Stream`	Drums audio for toms, plus cymbal audio if 4 is not present.	file path
`Drum4Stream`	Drums audio for cymbals.	file path

Instrument Names¶

Section Names¶

Instrument names:

Drums – Drums/Pro Drums/5-Lane Drums

Difficulties:

Expert
Hard
Medium
Easy

Note and Modifier Types¶

Note Type	Description
Notes
0	Kick
1	Red
2	Yellow
3	Blue
4	5-lane Orange, 4-lane Green
5	5-lane Green
32	Expert+ kick / 2x kick

Accents
34	Red accent modifier
35	Yellow accent modifier
36	Blue accent modifier
37	5-lane Orange, 4-lane Green accent modifier
38	5-lane Green accent modifier

Ghosts
40	Red ghost modifier
41	Yellow ghost modifier
42	Blue ghost modifier
43	5-lane Orange, 4-lane Green ghost modifier
44	5-lane Green ghost modifier

Cymbals
66	Yellow cymbal modifier
67	Blue cymbal modifier
68	Green cymbal modifier

4-Lane Note Mechanics¶

4-lane notes are toms by default in .chart. Cymbals are marked using the cymbal modifiers. It is impossible to have a cymbal and tom of the same color on the same tick, and red notes do not have cymbal markers and are always toms.

Expert+ / 2x kick notes are carried over from 5-lane. They are used for kicks faster than around 5-6 kicks per second (most commonly double-kick pedal sections), though there is some nuance to this regarding how long the kick sections last. These are used by alternating these faster kicks between normal kick notes and 2x Kick notes, to make double-kick notes opt-in and allow charts to be feasibly playable on kicks with only a single pedal.

Accent and ghost notes are also carried over from 5-lane. They are notes that notate relatively louder or quieter notes within the section. Hitting them correctly is optional, and typically just grants bonus points.

5-Lane Note Mechanics¶

In 5-lane, Red, blue, and green are toms, and yellow and orange are cymbals. While in Guitar Hero games they were not distinguished visually in-game, on the drum kit peripheral this is how they are laid out, and this is how they were charted.

Drum sustains are used for imprecise/indiscernible fast rhythms such as drum rolls or cymbal swells. They prevent overhitting and require you to hit faster than a certain threshold (around 4 hits per second in GH) to maintain the sustain. Unlike 4-lane roll lanes, kicks can be drum sustains.

Expert+ / 2x kick notes are used for kicks faster than around 5-6 kicks per second (most commonly double-kick pedal sections), though there is some nuance to this regarding how long the kick sections last. These are used by alternating these faster kicks between normal kick notes and 2x Kick notes, to make double-kick notes opt-in and allow charts to be feasibly playable on kicks with only a single pedal.

Accent and ghost notes are notes that notate relatively louder or quieter notes within the section. Hitting them correctly is optional, and typically just grants bonus points.

Special Phrase Types¶

Special Type	Description
Star Power
2	Star Power phrase
64	Drums Star Power activation phrase

Roll lanes
65	1-lane roll marker
66	2-lane roll marker

Special Phrase Mechanics¶

Star Power phrases mark sections of the chart where the player may gain Star Power. When Star Power is activated, points gained from notes are doubled (this applies on top of the standard combo multiplier), and health gained from hit notes drastically increases.

Star Power activation phrases mark a section of a song as an activation point, to allow drummers to activate Star Power without using a pad/cymbal combination or a dedicated button.

Unlike other special phrases, this phrase includes the very last tick (that is, the tick at the position of <start tick> + <phrase length>).
The length of the phrase is not important in its base functionality, rather, the end of the phrase is used to mark a note as an activation note that when hit will activate Star Power, and when missed will not break combo.
The note can either be generated at the exact end-point (overriding the existing notes), or can be an existing note in the chart which is both within the phrase, and closest to the end of the phrase (heed the note about the inclusion of the last tick as part of the phrase, as this phrase is usually marked across an entire measure or two without going slightly into the measure ahead of it).
Optionally, the length of the phrase may also be used to replicate the original freestyle fill feature from Rock Band that this phrase emulates.
These phrases can also be used to mark a Big Rock Ending phrase on drums by placing a coda/[coda] event on the global events track, though currently it is the only instrument that supports it.

Roll lanes are a 4-lane mechanic used to make imprecise/indiscernible fast rhythms such as drum rolls or cymbal swells easier to play. They prevent overhitting and only require you to hit faster than a certain threshold to hit the charted notes. This threshold can be either a static time threshold, or it can be based off of the actual charted notes.

Roll lanes are not specific to any lanes, rather they are applied dynamically to a lane based on the notes that are present.
There are two variants of roll lanes: single-lane, and double-lane.
Single-lane rolls are used for drum or cymbal rolls that only apply to a single lane at a time.
Double-lane rolls are used for cymbal swells that alternate between two different lanes.
Roll lanes cannot be applied to kicks.
If a single-lane roll starts on a chord (excluding kicks), the lane should be marked on the lane matching the next non-chord note.

Local Events¶

These are far from the only local events that may be seen, these are just the ones that are commonly supported.

Event Name	Description
`solo`	Starts a solo.
`soloend`	Ends a solo. Any notes at the same position are included in the solo.
`mix_<difficulty>_drums<configuration><flag>`	Sets a specific stem configuration for the chart, detailed below.

The mix event comes from Rock Band. It's provided for parity with .mid, as there are additional flags that affect chart parsing or stem configuration beyond what can be automatically set up, and follows this format:

mix_<difficulty>_drums<configuration><flags>

In .chart, this event can be found both with or without brackets, and with either spaces or underscores.

difficulty is a number indicating the difficulty this event applies to:

Text	Description
`0`	Easy
`1`	Medium
`2`	Hard
`3`	Expert

configuration is a number corresponding to a specific stem configuration:

Text	Description
`0`	One stereo stem for the entire kit. This is typically used for no stem, as well.
`1`	Mono kick, mono snare, stereo "other".
`2`	Mono kick, stereo snare, stereo "other".
`3`	Stereo kick, snare, and "other".
`4`	Mono kick, stereo "other".
`5`	Stereo kick, snare, toms, and cymbals. Not part of the RBN docs, rather it is defined as a community standard based on the GH stem layout.
Missing/unspecified	No stems are provided, and configuration should not be applied.

flags is an optional string added to the end of the event that applies modifications outside of setting up the mix:

Text	Description
`d`	Known as Disco Flip. On non-Pro, swaps the the snare and other/cymbal+tom stems, such that snare is activated by yellow, and other/cymbal+tom are activated by red. On Pro Drums, flips yellow cymbal/yellow tom and red notes to restore proper playing of the part with cymbals instead of swapping the stems.
`dnoflip`	Swaps the snare and kit/cymbal and tom stems on both non-Pro and Pro Drums, without swapping notes in Pro Drums. - Used in sections where notes should not be flipped in Pro Drums, but the snare and kit/cymbal stems should still be swapped.
`easy`	Unmutes the tom and cymbal stems on Easy. Used in sections where there are no tom or cymbal notes to unmute the "other" stem or tom/cymbal stems. Not supported in RB3, it handles this automatically.
`easynokick`	Unmutes the kick stem on Easy. Used in sections where there are no kick notes to unmute the kick stem. Not supported in RB3, it handles this automatically.

Aside from d and dnoflip, detecting stem configuration can be done automatically and these mix events can be ignored if that approach is chosen. If these events are used for more than just disco flip in a chart, then the configuration number should remain constant throughout the chart.

Example¶

[HardDrums]
{
  768 = N 1 0
  768 = S 64 768
  864 = N 2 0
  960 = N 3 0
  1056 = N 4 0
  1152 = N 0 0
  1248 = N 2 0
  1248 = N 66 0
  1344 = N 3 0
  1344 = N 67 0
  1440 = N 4 0
  1440 = N 68 0
  1536 = N 32 0
}